


Gone

by Quitebrilliantindeed



Category: Xenosaga
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Friendship, Gen, Implied Relationships, Post-Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quitebrilliantindeed/pseuds/Quitebrilliantindeed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t believe it's unfair for us to mourn them.” Shion, Jr, and the problem of loss. Post-Episode III.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there all! I guess I wrote this mainly as a sort of catharsis for all of my post-Xenosaga feelings, and also as an exploration of some of the character's relationships and emotions in regards to their recent losses. (i.e. I'm still upset over Gaignun and KOS-MOS.) And of course, I just plain wanted to write it as well! There is a touch of implied Shion/KOS-MOS floating around in here, but the story is by no means rooted in it. In fact, you can read their "love" as any kind of love that you wish. Also, keep in mind, major spoilers for Xenosaga III are below! I hope you enjoy it!

It was suppertime when she first brought it up. Or at least, it was at the best approximation of suppertime that they had created in the eternal light of the Elsa.

“Jr… are you okay?”

He continued eating as he gave his reply: “Duh,” he answered between spoonfuls of rice, “What, do you think I’m hiding something?”

Shion laughed halfheartedly and shook her head. “No, no, nothing like that! I just…” Her intended question was seeming like less and less of a good idea. “It’s nothing. Never mind. Forget it.” She set her half-empty bowl down in her lap and let her eyes glaze over. They had made a habit of eating dinner together by the window—just two of them, two friends, and no one else. The large viewport had become a source of lulling comfort to the both of them, providing a window into the murky expanse, and inviting them to lose their troubles there. Shion could have stared out there for hours, but she had snagged Jr’s attention, for better or worse—she could feel that fiery gaze burning a hole into her skull. It wouldn’t be long before Jr. was nigh ready to tackle her to the ground and demand that she continue her question.

“Shion—“ His voice hit her ears even sooner than she expected. How was she going to word it again? Was there any way to ask this with some tact…?

“Oh fine, fine,” She sighed. “It’s your brother. Not… not Albedo, but Gaignun.”

“Oh.” Shion’s heart sank as she watched the vitality drain from his body. His slight shoulders slumped and his mouth drooped into a resigned and empty frown. Maybe it would have been best to have kept her mouth shut. Maybe her gut had been right and this was a terrible idea. “What about him?”

“You just haven’t spoken of him all that much since Abel’s Ark, and it’s a bit… odd, I suppose. You two were so close, yet you’ve hardly mentioned his name since he died.” Oh, this sounded so much ruder out loud than it did in her head. Jr’s growing scowl confirmed her fears. “No! I’m not saying that you don’t care, not at all. And maybe none of this is even my business, but… I’m concerned about you.” Oh. Oh no.

Jr. turned his head from her gaze in a single, sharp movement. “Damn right it’s none of your business… It’s fine. _I’m_ fine. I’ll talk about him if I want to talk about him.”

“I understand that Jr, but if you want to talk, and you’re just holding it in—“

“I said I’m not!” He shot up from his seat, swiveling around to face her head-on, his temper blazing. “Okay!?”

Shion drew a slow and deep breath in, casting her eyes away from her friend’s in shame. His ragged breathing was the only sound in the otherwise unmoving room. He stood there beside her like a physical representation of her guilt, small fists clenched, and eyes lost in his own fury.

“I’m sorry. That... wasn’t fair. You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Shion shook her head, quickly revising her previous statement, “No. If that’s not even how you feel about this, that’s fine too.”

The rage slowly began to seep out of Jr. as he sank back to the metallic ledge where they sat. He ran a tired hand through bright red hair, sighing as he did, and Shion found herself staring at the worn-out 27-year old man, not that brash 12-year old child.

“Nah. I’m sorry…” He mumbled the words, seeming half ashamed of his temper, and half unsettled by the mention of his late brother. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. Hell, especially since you’re _right_.”

Shion couldn’t find t heart to celebrate the accuracy of her intuition— nothing but the concern and empathy that had fueled her to ask filled her in that moment. She doesn’t know how to respond, because so much of her head and heart had wanted to be wrong. So, she simply placed a gentle hand over her friend’s, and hoped that it was enough.

“I… I just—“ His large childish eyes begged Shion for help, for some sort of lifeline or encouragement to help in let it out. She met them, and resolutely nodded her acknowledgement.

“It’s okay. Go on.”

He takes a deep breath, and begins:

“I don’t feel… right moping over Gaignun. Do you know what I mean? It’s not fair to him… I shouldn’t be sad, because he chose that fate for himself.  He got what he wanted, and then some—and all for me and Albedo. How am I supposed to complain when he gave up everything for _us_? If I even started to whine about his absence, it would be an insult to everything he sacrificed.”

“Jr…!” Shion’s brow knotted with frustration. “That’s not true, and you know it. You have every right to feel every single emotion that comes to you—those sort of things are beyond anyone’s control.”

A half-hearted laugh shuddered through his body. “You met the guy. He was _impossibly_ nice-- I don’t think he ever thought about himself even once. He always did things for other people, for everyone else’s sake— oh God, he even lived most of his life trying to watch over me, and then he died the same way. And I’m… I’m supposed to cry about how unfair it all is?” He snorted. “…Don’t make me sick!”

A cloud of exasperation descended over Shion, tearing her between berating her friend and comforting him. She silently wished she was better at this sort of thing, before realizing how futile such an idea was. No matter how good a pillar she became, it would never be enough to fix the ills that befell her friends. Mere comfort would never heal all wounds, however much she might try—and she was trying her best. That was enough.

“Well…” She tilted her head, making direct eye-contact. She was not about to give up on him. “Don’t you think you’re not living up to his wishes then?”

“What do you mean by that?” Jr’s voice held a note of indignity at the thought of such a thing.

“He wanted you to live on and be happy. He wanted _Albedo_ to live on and be happy. He would hate to see you all bunched up like this, wouldn’t he? I think he knew better than anyone the sort of troubles that arise from bottling things up, so why would he ever want you to feel the same thing?”

“…Except he would be embarrassed that he would even mean so much to me…” Jr. retorted quietly.              

“…Hmm.” Shion hummed. Fair point. If only she had known the man better. The few encounters she had with him were more than enough for her to see his gentle nature—and the horror of how that was ripped away from him—but she found herself regretting how little she actually interacted with him.

“Okay then,” Shion started again, “Maybe this is the wrong approach. Let’s try something else, if you’re up for it?”

Jr. flashed a weak smile, seemingly genuine, if tinged with grimace and annoyance. “Shion…” 

“I want to do whatever I can,” She explained. “You all stood by me, even when I fought back, so I’ll stand with you. It’s only fair.”

Jr’s face turned pensive for a brief moment, and he pulled his hand from beneath Shion’s. “Then at least let me ask if you’re okay too.”

Shion blinked, momentarily stunned by his sudden confrontation. “Jr, we’ve already talked about this, haven’t we? We all have… Of course I miss them, but I’ll be okay. Can you imagine if Jin found me moping? He’d have my head!”

Jr. grinned. “Oh, so I’m allowed to mope, but you aren’t?”

“That—that’s not what I meant!” Shion resisted the urge to sink to ground, face in hands, cursing her own hypocrisy. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so useless to wish for better counseling skills. “It’s different. I meant that he wouldn’t want me to just quit and hide away. He would understand my sadness… but he wouldn’t allow me to become swallowed up in it.”

There was a long pause before Jr. answered her. His mind was somewhere distant and painful—and he didn’t need to convey that in words. He became so still, so quiet, that his troubled expression and slouched shape were the only things reminding Shion that she was not alone in the Elsa’s room, that there was another soul sitting there beside her.

“You see…” Jr’s voice croaked out as a hushed and controlled whisper. “That’s the problem. If I think of him, I’ll break... If I talk of him, I’ll be swallowed up whole.”

“Oh God…I’m so sorry, Jr. I’m so…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine…” He shook his head to quiet her apologies. “…I lost half of myself when Albedo was taken from me. And when I got him back, and he came _all_ the way back, back to my body, and I thought I’d be whole.”

“But you had lost the other piece…?”

Jr. nodded, hiding a grimace as she said it out loud. “I think Nigredo felt left out, when we were kids. I mean, Albedo and I were so close we were practically one being. I think that sometimes, he felt like the ‘plus-one’ when compared to us. But he wasn’t… he really wasn’t! He was a part of us too. Maybe even more so—because he wasn’t born with us, but he earned that place, and fought for it every second of his life. And now that he’s gone… we can’t… we can never be a whole again...”

His words broke apart, and Shion’s arms came around his shoulders, pulling him in close to her heart and drying the fall of tears from his face. She stroked his hair like a mother might to a child, shushing his sobs and guarding him from the ostensibly empty world around them. She waited and waited, holding onto him with patience and tender care until his hands grasped at her jacket sleeves, and he pulled himself up and away.

“Dammit, look at me…” He grumbled, brushing his hair down and sniffing indigently. “I’m not a little kid…” Shion smiled, saying nothing, as she could see nothing that was needed. “…Thanks.”

“…Don’t mention it.”

They sat together for some number of long minutes after that, staring out into the stars that streaked by in front of their eyes, as they barreled off towards the unknown reaches of space and the artifacts so long lost from history. They kept silent, both out of mutual respect for each other’s thoughts and privacy, and for composing themselves enough to once speak again.

“Gaignun… Nigredo said that we’d meet again someday.” Jr. announced, his voice renewed by the quiet period of recovery.

“Yeah.” Shion found no strength to give any further reply as the floodgate of memories swept open and poured over her mind. A sea of blue, white and red had swallowed her whole, the watery memories reaching up to her neck.  Jr. tilted his head, aware of her sudden change in demeanor, and lightly touched a hand to her shoulder.

“Hey? Are you…?” He stopped and withdrew upon seeing her expression. “Ah. KOS-MOS.”

“She… had said something similar,” Shion explained, ignoring that Jr. had been there to hear her words. “She said the time between our parting and reunion would be short, in the grand scheme of things.”

“…Well? Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know. Part of me wants to. The other part is afraid of having her hopes crushed in the end. But I suppose if that’s the case, it doesn’t really matter, does it? For now though… I’m holding onto it. I trust KOS-MOS. And chaos, and Gaignun, and… everyone, really. They wouldn’t have said it if they didn’t mean it, right?”

“Yeah. You’re right, and I’d be a terrible brother to stop trusting him now.”

“And I’d be a terrible…” The last word was lost to Shion’s tongue—she wracked her brain for any descriptor she could possibly use to define what KOS-MOS meant to her, but fell up short. Defeated, yet vaguely satisfied, she simply smiled. “Well, it would be terrible not to believe in her regardless.”

“Hey, Shion?”

“Yes?”

“There’s something we need to do.”

\---

They held the ceremony one week later.

The entire crew of the Elsa, robots and humans alike, gathered in their patchwork glory, garbed in black and bearing flowers. Mary and Shelley, Matthews and Hammer, Tony, and Allen—not a single member was missing.

There were no bodies.

There were no caskets.

No preachers.

Nothing but a group of travelers and their wills, gathered together to send off friends and lovers, and otherwise.

A shrine of sorts was erected—a single bowl of water, large, and surrounded with flowers not unlike the ones being held in the hands of the guests. Three paper boats floated on the clear surface, rocking and humming with the ship’s engines, but never tipping or going astray.  One by one, the group gathered around the bowl, tears kept inside, and solemn masks erected over their features.

“Um,” Shion laughed nervously, the gaze of everyone trained on her as a vague sense of uncertainty and embarrassment crept up on her. “This is a bit strange, I know, but I think… I think we all want to honor these people in some small way. We’ve set out on this journey, and they…” She struggled not to falter as she spoke it: “…they have set out on theirs. It’s an entirely different one, and perhaps one far less trying than the one we face. At least, we all hope it is—their rest is one well-earned. So…”

“To my dear brother Jin Uzuki—who never gave up on me,”

She let the first flower drop into the bowl, unleashing a study stream of gentle ripples to rock the small crafts.

“To Nigredo, to Gaignun Kukai—who gave his love to all but himself.”

She gently placed the next one in beside it, letting the water rush over its stem so that the petals floated delicately on the glasslike surface.

“And to KOS-MOS—to whom my love has no words.”

She released the final flower with two hands, and watched as it floated down to the bowl below—a movement that lasted less than a second, but was far longer than she could take. She shut her eyes and bit her lip, unwilling to let herself go at this time. Brushing the water droplets off her dress, and composing herself to the best of her ability, Shion stood tall and raised her head to speak to the small crowd around her.

“It might be unfair, or perhaps such a concept doesn’t even apply in matters like this, but we must forge onwards—we have a duty, just as they did. However, despite that, I don’t believe it is unfair for us to mourn them. We are only human. Their memory will not distract us in our lives, but fuel our desire to do better.” She looked to Jr, standing not far behind her and gave him the smallest smile. “We’ll all meet again one day—it sounds dubious, I know, but they’re the words of people that I trust more than anything. Until then, we can only wish, and work, to be as strong as my brother, as kind as Jr’s, and as supportive as KOS-MOS… as supportive as she was to me in my time of need.”

With a deep breath in, Shion bent down to the bowl and took it into her arms. She took it from its perch, and walked it to the curtain of energy separating them from the vacuum outside. Gently, careful not to spill them over, she brushed her fingers against each fragile boat before tossing it through the field, and into the universe beyond. The water spilled forth from the jug from the momentum of the throw, sending off the tiny ships in a glistening shower of petals and droplets, a miniature universe of their own, made of liquid stars and leafy nebulas.

Shion’s hands lingered in front of the field for a moment, before they fell limply to her sides. The rest of the crew had joined her at the airlock; a murmur of emotion spreading among them as the ripples has spread through the bowl.

“Farewell.” Shion whispered, starting a ripple effect of her own, as each and every person behind her echoed the sentiment with as much heart as the first.

Then, slowly, the boats and the people dispersed, leaving Shion and Jr. as the only two left at the dock. Breathing in the newfound silence, Jr. took his chance, closed his eyes and opened his mind:

 _“Nigredo... Travel safely, you hear me? You never stopped reminding me to actually act like the big brother I am, but I always tuned you out. I can’t say if I was just trying to spite you, or if I was running from responsibilities, or just running from myself, but right now, I’m going to actually listen to your advice. You said it yourself—your duty is over. You watched over me for all those years, keeping me safe, keeping me in line... It’s my turn now—I’ll take care of_ everyone. _You don’t need to worry anymore… take your reward, and run! Just Close your eyes and rest—I’ll handle things from now on.”_

“Jr?”

“Hm?”

Shion leaned back, and waved a hand dismissively. “It’s nothing. You just looked a little spaced out.”

“Well, I could say the same for you!” Jr. retorted, nudging Shion softly with his elbow.

“Hey!” She batted his hand away, and sighed. “Come on, let’s go. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”

“Of course, yeah. Sure thing!”

The pair began to move from the airlock, hesitantly at first, but steadily and gradually picking up speed. As Jr. stepped out of the dock and jogged off into the Elsa’s winding passageways, Shion stopped and turned to stare out to the stars once more.

_“KOS-MOS. I said that I met the “true” you for the first time back on Michtam. And while I think that still stands mostly true, I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. You were always ‘you’ and I never would have asked for you to be any different. Perhaps your speech was colder, and your words cleaner and more precise, but the heart of them, and your heart, were no different from that of your awakened form. You protected me out of a wish found in the depths of that heart, not because of some silly program I, Kevin, or anyone else made. That love, that affection… that was just as real as what I felt towards you.”_

“Come onnnn!” Jr called, poking his red-head back in the door and tugging at Shion’s arm.  “What was that about there being plenty of work to do…?”

“I’m sorry.” Her reply was hurried, so she expected a brutal snarky remark to snap out from Jr, chiding her for the lame explanation, but none came. Instead, a knowing smile appeared on Jr’s face, gentle, and a window to the years behind his boyish features.

“Come on,” He repeated, softly this time as he gave her sleeve another tug. “Let’s go.”

“Mm. Yeah.” Shion gave into his pull, and stepped through the doorway, and out of the makeshift cemetery where she had stood.

_“KOS-MOS… let’s meet again soon, okay?”_


End file.
